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Dr. Martin Schadt, CEO of Roche spin-off Rolic Technologies, is a man who gets very excited when he talks about his work with Dr. Wolfgang Helfrich. Together, they invented the twisted nematic, which, along with the super twisted nematic effect, is the basis of most common Liquid Crystal Displays found today in dozens of applications and millions upon millions of devices.

We had the pleasure of sitting down with Dr. Schadt at the recent SID conference for a look back at the beginnings of this key electronic imaging technology.

In 1969, chemical giant Hoffman-LaRoche - referred to by most people simply as Roche - decided that it was time to diversify, as many pharmaceutical companies were doing at that time, looking at markets like medical electronics and projects like liquid crystals, which were used for testing drugs.

Drs. Schadt and Helfrich brought an unusual set of backgrounds to Roche. …

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